My Lovesick Zombie Boy Band (& weirder tales)

My Lovesick Zombie Boy Band - Part 1

I am excavating an eight pointed star onto the pages of my text book when I catch the boy looking at me. I keep the pen moving, the shiny blue ink bubbling and frothing, soaking the pink paper. At the centre of the doodle I draw a lidless eye. It gazes up at me unblinking, forever caught in devotion and desire. The boy is looking at me like he owns me. Boys are so dumb. Don’t they get that beauty is a trap you fall in to by looking?

I hear voices whisper my name. Antonia, Jane and Elisabeth, the three bitches, are hissing at the back of the class. I used to be bitch number four, until I went from bitch to witch. There is nothing that teenage society hates more than an unauthorised image change. I turn to stare them down but they take cover behind perfect schoolgirl flicks that muffle their mocking laughter.

‘Alexander.’ Ms Holloway calls out the name in her frustrated drone. I suppose if I was an unmarried forty something school teacher I might be frustrated as well. Rumour is that Miss Holloway used to be the world’s biggest Harriet. Now she is making up for all that niceness with a bitch impression of the highest calibre. Hers is the face a person gets from having their heart torn still beating from their chest and brutally stamped on, not just once or even twice but over and over again. Her lesson for us is simple - there are no happy endings.

‘Alexander?’ The despairing face of Miss Holloway stares at the class. Our blank faces stare back. ‘Alexander?’

Alexander is only the latest absentee, and yet more proof if it were needed that this world truly is a phallocentric cockrocracy. Half the boys in the class are absent and no one seems to care.  A boy misses school and it is taken as a sign of healthy development. A girl misses a day and she may as well have launched herself down the slippery slope that leads to teenage pregnancy, crack addiction and a career in hardcore pornography. Sometimes it seems like half the world is dedicated to keeping a girl's legs together. Of course the other half is devoted to prying them apart.

‘David.’ Miss Holloway continues. Dear God, I promise to stop worshipping your competitor if only you will bring on this woman’s inevitable nervous breakdown. Now would be fine.

‘David?’

Burn. In. Hell.

He is looking at me, but I do not look back. I have his attention, but I am not an attention seeker. It is devotion I demand.

‘Adam.’

Adam is a perfect himbo. Blonde hair cut not quite long enough to break school rules, the beaming smile of a victorious athlete and the blue, blue, blue eyes that are gazing at me across the classroom. Rumour says he was the first boy in our year to get a tattoo. Rumour also says he has had every girl in the class. Except me. The heat of his gaze tells he must be looking to complete his collection.

I have no intention of becoming fuck-in-laws with Antonia, Jane and Elisabeth. But those blue eyes are throwing down a challenge. I have no choice but to accept, or I lose by default.

I turn and look into Adam’s blue, blue eyes. He smiles, and I smile back. A minute later the txt buzzes its way into my mobile. 

The Pit. Tonite

Sukrod R Playing

The doodle progresses from the page onto skin. I switch from felt tip marker to fountain pen, scrabbling around in an overstuffed pencil case among Hello Kitty erasers and pencil crayons sharpened down to stubs. The sharp nib bites deliciously against skin. I imagine it as the buzzing tip of the tattoo needle I am forbidden from experiencing. Just a month more until I turn sixteen and then not even my father can stop me.  I press down hard with the pen and feel a squeak of excitement as a bubble of glistening red blood pops up and mingles with the ink. It's only then I see the sigil I have engraved on my arm, a single letter circled by a perfect ring, now in black and red.

A is for Adam.

***

I collect rings. Some people might mistake a girl's rings for jewellery. The silver I wear is more like weaponry.

***

Monica takes us on a guided tour of retail installations after school. Us being the monster and I. Brothers are like nits, an uncomfortable inevitability of childhood. A year ago I was a foot taller than him. Now he is up to my shoulder. I am told he will continue to grow. The future looms before me like a death sentence.

‘I want mice.’ What His Putridness wants with mice, plural, he is not willing to say.

‘Your father says not.’ Monica replies timidly.

‘Mice!’ My brother screeches.

Monica is the family au pair. Swiss, brunette and fucking my father. I can’t bring myself to hate either of them for this. Father has the misfortune of being married to mother, and in her own words an escapist sex life may be the only thing keeping him alive. For Monica’s part I don’t credit the poor girl with enough willpower to have a say in the matter.

‘GAP?’

For some reason I am unable to comprehend Monica is suggesting I enter the shop. I explain to her in clear and succinct terms precisely why I do not shop at GAP. By the time I am finished she is on the verge of tears. I am merciful and allow her to escape with the monster, still set on terrorising the world’s rodent population.

I appear to have the run of the city. Wherever shall I go?